Grammar I Graciela Palacio

LV/UB 2012(revised 2015)

LESSON 9:
FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES

In lesson 2 we said that a distinction could be made between two types of categories: lexical
categories and functional categories.

The lexical categories or content words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions and
adverbs. They have the following properties:

1. They have descriptive or semantic content. For example, when we use the verb kill
we get different pictures in the mind that could represent the meaning of kill. When
we use the word cat, we get a picture of the prototype of a cat. Radford (1997) says
that ‘one test to check whether words have descriptive content is to see whether they
have antonyms (i.e. opposites)’. He provides the following examples: loss/gain
(nouns), rise/fall (verbs), tall/short (adjectives), in/out (prepositions), early (as in He
arrived early/late) (adverbs). This test is tricky, though, because, as he says, if a word
has an antonym, it is a lexical category (or content word), but if it has no antonym,
you cannot be sure.
2. With the exception of prepositions, lexical categories constitute open classes (i.e. new
ones can be easily created).
3. Their complements are arguments.
4. They assign semantic roles (or theta-roles) to their arguments. For example, the verb
kill requires a patient (the one that suffers the action) and an agent (the one that does
the killing).

The functional categories are: determiners (such as the definite article the and the indefinite
article in its two variants a/an), pronouns (which for us will be type of determiner), auxiliary
verbs, the traditionally called subordinating conjunctions introducing finite or conjugated
clauses (e.g.: He said that he was happy. He asked if I was happy) and the word for
introducing a non-finite clause (e.g.: It is easy for me to do that). These three words are
nowadays referred to as complementisers. Negation is another functional category and
linguists do not agree as to the status of tense (i.e. for some, tense is functional, for some
others, it is not). In this course, however, we will treat it as a functional category. While some
functional categories coincide with words, there are others which are affixal in nature.
According to Giusti (1997), Abney (1987) states that functional categories have the following
properties:

1. They lack ‘descriptive content’.

2. They do not assign theta-roles.
3. They express grammatical features. For example, the definite article the can express
generic or specific reference (The rich are often asked for money (generic) vs. The fat
man over there is my boss (specific)).
4. They permit only one complement, which is in general not an argument. And they
always take the same category as complement.

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 5. They are generally stressless (e.g. articles), often clitics 1 or affixes, and sometimes
even phonologically null (i.e. silent, without phonological content), e.g. Ø Tigers are
dangerous animals. (cf. in Spanish Los tigres son animales peligrosos)
6. They constitute closed lexical classes (i.e. new ones are not easily created). This is the
case of complementisers (that, if, for), auxiliary verbs and determiners.
7. They are usually inseparable from their complement.

According to Giusti (1997), each of these properties constitutes a tendency, not a criterion, to
decide whether an element is lexical or functional.

TO SUM UP:
There are two types of categories:
1. lexical categories and
2. functional categories

The lexical categories are:

1. nouns
2. verbs
3. adjectives
4. prepositions
5. adverbs

The functional categories (for the time being) are:

1) determiners (the, a/an and pronouns)
2) complementisers (that, if, for)
3) negation
4) tense (often manifested by means of auxiliary verbs)

PHRASAL CATEGORIES
All the functional categories listed above can expand to form phrases. For example, when a
determiner such as the combines with a noun such as man, we have a determiner phrase (DP).
The determiner the functions as the head of the phrase and gives the phrase its name. The
noun functions as the complement of the determiner. The determiner the is a type of
determiner that has to be followed by a complement. Pronouns are considered to be a type of
determiner which occurs without a complement. Phrases such as we teachers or you students
in which a determiner/pronoun occurs followed by a noun complement are not the general
rule.

The lexical categories constitute the semantic core of the sentence. The predicator
determines the number of arguments that must occur with it and assigns them a theta-role. Let
1
A clitic is a sort of parasite, an element that is dependent on another element to survive, for example n’t, which
is used to express negation.

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us see how this works in the case of a very simple sentence such as He will eat the sweet in
which the predicator is a verb. The verb eat merges with its DP complement the sweet and the
two elements form the intermediate constituent V’ (to be read as V-bar), the subject DP comes
along and merges with V’ to form the full VP he eat the sweet.

Once the semantic core of the sentence has been formed, the functional category tense (T)
comes along. Tense will merge with the VP to form the intermediate constituent T’. Because
tense always needs a subject, it will expand once more into TP (tense phrase). The subject
will move out of VP to occupy the position before the conjugated verb. TP constitutes the
first functional layer.

Then comes the complementiser (C), which will have the tense phrase as complement. Again
the complementiser will expand to form a complementiser phrase (CP), the second functional
layer. Complementisers express the illocutionary force of the sentence (i.e. they tell us
whether the sentence is declarative, interrogative or imperative). If no other position is
required the complementiser will project (= expand) only once (cf. see lesson on interrogative
sentences). In the sentence we are discussing the complementiser has no phonological
content, i.e. it is a null category or empty category. An empty category is a category that
has no phonological features but that does not mean that it does not have other features. In

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fact the complementiser marks the clause as declarative and as finite (i.e. as a clause that will
have a finite verb).

We will say that every sentence is a complementiser phrase (CP). The complementiser which
is the head of the complementiser phrase has a tense phrase (TP) as complement. The tense
which is the head of the tense phrase has a lexical phrasal category as complement. The tree
that we have drawn is made up of a CP + a TP + a VP.

The most important thing is that sentences have a hierarchical structure, not a flat structure.
Their hierarchical structure is clearly represented by means of the tree diagrams.

The functional categories form extended projections of the lexical categories.

PHONOLOGICALLY NULL FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES

We said above that every sentence is a CP (complementiser phrase). Main clauses in English
are introduced by a null complementiser, e.g.:

Ø He said that he was coming.

Head (C) Complement to the complementiser (TP)

Subordinate clauses may be introduced by an overt or a covert (silent, null) complementiser:

He said <that he was coming>.

<Ø he was coming>.

Determiners can also be null:

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 The dog is mine. Specific reference
El perro es mio. Specific reference
Ø Dogs eat meat. Generic reference
Los perros comen carne. Generic reference
Ø Mary is tall. Unique reference (context dependent)
Ø María es alta. Unique reference (context dependent)
La María es alta. (dialectal) Unique reference (context dependent)
Los Fernández se fueron de vacaciones. Unique reference (context dependent)

We will be discussing other silent categories as the course proceeds. Silent categories are
called Empty Categories. They are empty of phonological content. But they still have
grammatical features.

Lesson 9 Activity 1: (to be discussed in class)

Which are the lexical and the functional categories in the following sentences? Remember
that functional categories may be phonologically null (i.e. silent), in which case we represent
them as Ø.

1. The tiger in that cage must be dangerous.

2. Tigers are dangerous.
3. He said that he would come.
4. He said he would come.
5. The teacher asked me if I had been present the previous class.

Lesson 9 Activity 2: (To be handed in as Assignment 9)

State which are the lexical and the functional categories in the following sentence, for
example:

Ø: functional category, null complementiser introducing a main clause.

The: functional category, determiner, definite article.
Man: lexical category, noun.

Now go on….

1. The man did not say that he would help us.

REFERENCES.
Abney, S. (1987) The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. PhD dissertation: MIT.
Giusti, G. (1997) The categorial status of determines, in L. Haegeman (ed.) The New
Comparative Syntax. Longman, 95-123.
Radford, A. (1997) Syntactic Theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach.
CUP.

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